Here's our son!!!

Today we spent a wonderful hour with our son and his equally wonderful foster mother (and the director of Holt-Korea who was also our translator). We are in love with him!!! Here are some photos of him and some of the things we learned:

• He truly is cute and active!! The video below shows how much he is of both! (We took lots of video, but most of it is too big to upload).
• He sleeps 9-10 hours/night (yea!)
• He loves to eat and isn't picky (yea again!)
• He absolutely loves baths and doesn't want to get out at the end.
• When we asked what his personality was like, the foster mom's first reaction was "has a short temper"! We're assuming the translation might not mean what we would say it means, since she also said that nothing frightens or really frustrates him and that he's an "easy going baby."
• He loves to be held and is almost always happy.
• The foster mom is Catholic and has taken him to church (but she also said she had to "wear him" since he's so active and moves around so much!)
• The foster mom gave us 40 photos of him during the past 7 months -- he was and is adorable!
• Today we met him during his nap time, though he was a trooper and gave us lots of smiles and let me (Jana) hold him. Tomorrow we'll get to spend time with him again at his final medical check up -- and Monday we'll get to hold him in our arms for good!
• We feel blessed beyond words, and we can't wait to get to know our son even more deeply in the coming days.
  

In other news, it is RAINING like crazy!!! We're smack dab in the middle of Korea's rainy/monsoon season, so we're not sure we'll even get a dry day! We had a fantastic authentic Korean lunch after we met with Tae, and tomorrow we'll go on a city tour including one of the royal palaces and several markets. We're making lists of what to buy to bring home for our little one!

Thanks for traveling with us to Korea to meet our son, too! We send our love!

Jana and Michael

We made it!

After being up for almost 24 hours, we are so grateful to have arrived safely in our son's birth country. It surprisingly reminds us of San Luis Obispo with lots of hills and trees (on the outskirts of Seoul), but has lots of city life where we're staying. People have already been so kind to us, and we think the Incheon airport in Seoul is one of the most beautiful we've seen! Some scenes from today:

(The last two are from arriving at the Seoul airport, and the view out our hotel room window).

Tomorrow we meet our son at 10am! WOW!!!!

Thank you for your prayers and thoughts which truly feel like they are sustaining us and keeping us calm!

Tae's room

We're all ready for Tae to come home! Here's his room...he'll be here in just 8 days! Thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers. We'll post photos of him when we meet him on Thursday!

Travel Call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're going to Korea to meet our son! We're beside ourselves with joy!!!!

I (Jana) got the call from our adoption agency yesterday while I was on the Precor at the gym, so I was out of breath for 2 reasons! A whirlwind of travel arrangements ensued -- we leave Tuesday, July 7 and fly from San Luis Obispo to LA to Tokyo to Seoul (20 hours of travel - whew!). We'll arrive Wednesday night (Korea time...16 hours difference from CA), meet our Baby Tae on Thursday, and receive him forever on Monday, July 13. We leave Seoul for a direct flight to San Francisco on Tuesday, July 14 and my parents will be here to meet us in San Luis Obispo when we arrive home -- and our lives will never be the same!

We are grateful beyond words for the prayers and support of so many who have accompanied us on this journey, and we look forward to posting photos and stories of the continuing journey, especially when we meet him in Seoul. And this weekend we'll post some photos of his room, too.

Blessings!
Jana and Michael

Visa Approval!

We got great news yesterday that moves us one giant leap closer to receiving our long-awaited "travel call" to receive our son. After many frustrating weeks of dealing with "missing paperwork" and phone calls and emails to the Department of Homeland Security in L.A., our Baby Tae's visa application was approved! So now he can both leave Korea (he received his emigration permit on April 13th) and enter the U.S.!

Mike called me with the news while I was at our synod assembly in Thousand Oaks yesterday, so many friends helped celebrate there! Mike was at home with his fantastic parents who are in SLO helping build our backyard deck and do lots of other house projects to help get us ready to bring home Baby Tae -- which could now happen in the next few weeks!

The last steps that need to occur: Tae's visa approval is registered with the U.S. government and then his visa is issued by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul (which takes 5 days), he needs a visa physical and visa "interview" (just some more paperwork that is certified by a judge in Korea) -- but then he should be ready for us to come meet him and bring him home into his forever family!

We'll be sure to update our blog when we get "the call." We're hoping for a call by the end of June, though we know it could be earlier or later. Thanks for journeying along with us!

New photo!!!

We were so excited tonight to open new photos of our little cutie! We're confident that he's being well fed! :-) It reminds us of how in love we are with our son, how grateful we are to be on this journey, and how thankful we are for those who are now caring for him.

And it's certainly timely, since just yesterday we received his "legals" from Korea (basically legal proof of his birth and current guardianship by our agency) which today we used to file a visa petition with the USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services). Hopefully we'll hear in the next month or so that he's been approved for a visa and emigration permit, then we'll have a couple other hoops to jump through before the visa is issued. We'll receive the "travel call" anytime between late May and August. Whew! It's really happening!

We're blessed and happy -- thanks for your support and prayers!

Jana and Michael

P.S. Yep...he's still "Baby Tae" at this point! :-)

Three weeks into parenting...

We both remarked today how fast these 3 weeks have gone since we learned about Tae-gyu, our Beautiful Star. We've been busy...here's an update on how "parenting" has been!

• Number one question: have you decided on his name? Right now he is "Baby Tae" to us - and who knows, perhaps it will stick! We are letting the name "emerge," and we assume we'll know more if/when we receive a more recent photo, or perhaps even when we meet him!
• We spent many, many hours filling out his acceptance paperwork, and got an early baby present when the Notary Public who notarized 15 documents refused our $150 payment as her gift!
• After we Fed-Exed our acceptance paperwork to Holt, they replied right away saying the next steps of the process will now occur. First our paperwork is translated and sent to the Korean government to approve an emigration permit, and when we receive Tae-gyu's legal documents we'll file a visa petition in the U.S. (through the USCIS...in the Department of Homeland Security!). The visa will likely be approved sometime between late May-August and we'll then receive the highly anticipated "Travel Call!"
• As a request from our church for the shower they're planning, we spent time the last couple days "registering" at a local baby store and Target. It gave me (Jana) both a lot of smiles as well as a massive headache to walk down aisle upon aisle of "baby paraphernalia."
• We've spent time preparing for life at home with Baby Tae. We have both requested maternity/paternity leave from our jobs, as well as 1 day less work per week with reduced compensation. If that all falls into place, we'll only need 2 days of child care/week for Baby Tae.
• While we wait, he is happily (we imagine!) enjoying his foster family -- with 3 women in the household we imagine him getting lots of cuddles and sling time (babies are mostly worn on women's backs in Korea). And we assume he'll be well fed -- our social worker told us to expect a "cute, pudgy baby!"
• Every day we look at his photos and pray with thanksgiving and joy. At this point, we are not anxious about the time line -- we have much left to do before we travel to Seoul, and I'll be busy with a Spring Break LCM service trip to Texas and Holy Week approaching, and Mike will be busy building our backyard deck (right, honey??). But for now, we remain smitten and in love with our baby boy, giving thanks for God's gracious gift.

Thanks for following along on our journey. Peace to you.

Love, Jana and Michael